Author: IQ TIMES MEDIA

Business leaders who believe staying quiet about the Trump administration will protect their companies are making a dangerous miscalculation, says Reid Hoffman.The LinkedIn cofounder and tech investor said in an episode of the “Rapid Response” podcast published Tuesday that he rejects the idea that executives can simply wait out political turbulence.”The theory that if you just keep your mouth shut, the storm will blow over and it won’t be a problem — you should be disabused of that theory now,” Hoffman said.Hoffman is a longtime Democratic donor and one of Silicon Valley’s most outspoken political voices. He has backed Democratic…

NEW DELHI (AP) — Indian authorities said they had contained a Nipah virus outbreak after confirming two cases in the eastern state of West Bengal, as several Asian countries tightened health screenings and airport surveillance for travelers arriving from India.India’s Health Ministry said Tuesday that two Nipah cases had been detected since December and that all identified contacts had been quarantined and tested. The ministry did not release details about the patients but said 196 contacts had been traced and all tested negative.“The situation is under constant monitoring, and all necessary public health measures are in place,” the ministry said.Nipah,…

This CEO says that when you’re signing up to work at his startup, you’re in for a ride.On an episode of the “20VC” podcast released on Monday, the CEO of the $2 billion legal AI startup Legora shared an interview question he asks candidates to gauge their cultural fit.”I still interview everyone, so I ask quite brutal questions about, ‘Why take a hard job? You could go work somewhere else,'” Max Junestrand said.The Swedish startup competes with San Francisco-based Harvey, which has a valuation of $8 billion.”I try to create missionaries, not mercenaries,” Junestrand said, referring to an analogy coined by Kleiner…

Measles cases in South Carolina have surpassed the 2025 West Texas outbreak, reaching nearly 800 cases as the United States is on the verge of losing its status of having eliminated the disease, state health officials announced Jan. 27.The South Carolina Department of Public Health reported that 89 new measles cases have been confirmed since Jan. 23, bringing the total to 789. The number has overtaken the West Texas outbreak in 2025, which reached 762 cases and killed two children before ending in August.The outbreak in South Carolina, which began in October 2025, has been centered in the northwest, which…

Some Amazon employees got a worrying calendar invitation on Tuesday, stoking more concern about job cuts that are expected in coming days. The invitation addressed impending job cuts and mentioned “Project Dawn,” an initiative to improve efficiency at Amazon, according to a copy obtained by Business Insider.The invitation had the subject line “Send Project Dawn email” and was written by Colleen Aubrey, senior vice president of AWS Solutions, although it appears to have been sent by an assistant. The invitation was for a calendar event at 5 a.m. Pacific time on Wednesday, but it was canceled shortly after it was…

The latest wave of AI excitement has brought us an unexpected mascot: a lobster. Clawdbot, a personal AI assistant, went viral within weeks of its launch and will keep its crustacean theme despite having had to change its name to Moltbot after a legal challenge from Anthropic. But before you jump on the bandwagon, here’s what you need to know. According to its tagline, Moltbot (formerly Clawdbot) is the “AI that actually does things” — whether it’s managing your calendar, sending messages through your favorite apps, or checking you in for flights. This promise has drawn thousands of users willing…

Being patriotic means you also need to call out “overreach” when you see it, Sam Altman privately told OpenAI employees in a message that said Immigration and Customs Enforcement had gone “too far.””I love the US and its values of democracy and freedom and will be supportive of the country however I can; OpenAI will too,” the OpenAI CEO wrote in an internal Slack message. “But part of loving the country is the American duty to push back against overreach. What’s happening with ICE is going too far.”OpenAI employees responded positively to Altman’s message on Slack, including heart and thank-you…

The Trump administration on Tuesday announced the next round of prescription drugs up for Medicare price negotiations. The list includes Botox and the GLP-1 drug Trulicity.The negotiations stem from President Joe Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act of 2022, which gave the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services the authority to haggle over prices on the costliest prescription drugs each year. The results from the first round of negotiated prices went into effect this year.The drugs selected for this round of negotiation accounted for about $27 billion in total prescription drug spending under Medicare Part B and Part D, according to CMS.Medicare…

Anduril founder Palmer Luckey’s eyes light up, and he talks a mile a minute, when discussing his company’s new recruiting event: the AI Grand Prix.  This is a drone-flying contest with a twist. Rather than humans operating drones, the drones must operate autonomously. The humans will be tested on their software-writing skills that cause the drones to outfly their competition.   There are prizes ranging from a $500,000 pot to be spilt amongst the highest-scoring teams, to jobs at Anduril and a chance to bypass the company’s standard recruiting cycle.  “It was something that I decided we should do,” Luckey said in an interview with TechCrunch. Luckey and…

Don’t expect to see Sam Altman lamenting the absence of “masculine energy” in corporate America to Joe Rogan anytime soon.The OpenAI CEO sent employees a message on Slack criticizing Immigration and Customs Enforcement — and appears to have taken the opportunity to also take a subtle jab at his rival, Mark Zuckerberg.The reference can be found where Altman wrote that OpenAI aims to “not get blown around by changing fashions.””We didn’t start talking about masculine corporate energy when that was popular,” Altman told employees.Last year, Zuckerberg championed a return to masculinity at Meta on “The Joe Rogan Experience.” “The masculine…